Angelica squeezed my hand and winked. “Now that sounded like the commanding voice of a prime minister’s wife.”
That evening, I dressed in a dark blue gown with painted flowers I’d commissioned specially for the occasion, and we wedged ourselves into Angelica’s hired gilded coach for the short ride down Broadway to the Assembly Rooms. My sister believed a man of my husband’s stature needed to arrive in a grand fashion, and she was probably right. But my mind was unsettled about Alexander’s intentions for our future, and the way my powdered hair, styled very tall, bumped the carriage rooftop with every jolt of the wheels didn’t help.
By contrast, Angelica seemed at ease, and woefully underdressed. She insisted it was now quite in fashion on the Continent to go with natural hair, wearing the simpler gown she claimed had been popularized by the Queen of France. And everyone was very interested in all things French that summer, since the king had, at Lafayette’s instigation, called together the Estates General to reform France’s government in accordance with the principles of liberty.
Heaving a dreamy sigh, Angelica told us, “Mr. Jefferson believes that our revolution has unchained the mind of man, and that the whole world is now making itself over.”
She spoke often, and recklessly, of her flirtation with Mr. Jefferson, boasting to all who would listen how tall he was. How learned and courtly. What a wonderful father he was to his little motherless daughters. Even confiding to us the man’s secret dalliances. Exasperated, Alexander teased that she’d perhaps formed an improper attachment to the man.
I feared she might take it as a rebuke, but instead Angelica seemed delighted by the suggestion of jealousy in his voice. “Oh, but who can know what is proper anymore?”
My sister was not the only one to wonder it as three hundred well-coiffed guests all jockeyed for position in the entryway of the festooned ballroom.
With Mrs. Washington absent, ladies of rank had donned their most exquisite gowns, flashed their jewels, and flaunted their connections to contend for influence and position in this brave new society. Ordinarily, Governor Clinton’s wife would have been next in line to set the tone and protocol for the event. But the formidable Mrs. Knox, wife of the new secretary of war, seemed to believe the honor was hers. Mrs. Knox had been the one to buy the brown cloth for the president’s inaugural suit—all of American manufacture. Mrs. Knox was the one who hosted the party after the president was sworn in, where we watched firecrackers explode in bright, glittering display over the Hudson River. And Mrs. Knox was the one to have insisted upon commemorative gifts—ivory fans, imported from France, each depicting a medallion portrait of Washington in profile between the hinges and elegant paper covering.
So I was happy to let her have her due, especially at the expense of a Clinton.
“Oh, how marvelous,” Peggy murmured as she joined us, fluttering her eyelashes behind the fan. “A keepsake to treasure.”
I used mine to wave across the room. “Mr. Madison!”
As always, Madison wore black, leading me to worry that the poor bachelor owned just the one suit. His eyes kept darting to the entryway, as if he were reconsidering having come at all, ill at ease in society as he always seemed to be.
And seeing him fidget as I waved to him, Angelica’s eyes widened. “Oh my. Tell me that pale little creature isn’t the exalted Mr. Madison that I’ve heard you talk so much about!”
“Be kind,” I whispered. “He’s very clever but very shy.”
Peggy made a face behind her fan. “He looks like some sort of incorruptible parson.”
Which made my husband laugh. “A rather apt comparison. That he is uncorrupted and incorruptible I have not a doubt.”
At last, the bookish congressman made his way through the press and offered a bow. Clapping Madison on the back with enough force to make him cough, Hamilton introduced his brilliant colleague to my sisters. And the mere sight of Angelica seemed to force Jemmy to retrieve a kerchief from his velvet coat with which to wipe sweat from his brow.
“Congratulations upon your recent election to Congress, Mr. Madison,” I said.
“Hopefully condolences aren’t in order,” he quipped. “How are my favorite little Hamiltons?”
That he always remembered our brood of children so tenderly made me ever fonder of him. “Philip can hold whole conversations in French with Alexander and Angelica. I’m quite left out.”
While Jemmy and I chattered, Peggy sighed impatiently. “Is there no formal order to this reception?”